Conservative lawmakers and groups are pushing Republican leaders to pass a short-term government spending bill so that they will have more power to defund any executive action from President Obama on immigration as well as other measures.
Government funding runs out Dec. 12, and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are leaning toward passing an omnibus appropriations bill funding the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Doing so, advocates of that strategy say, would avoid a messy and contentious government shutdown or more brinksmanship early in the new year after a wave GOP election in which voters expressed a desire for bipartisan cooperation.
But conservative members of the GOP conference argue that passing an omnibus spending bill would give away most, if not all, of the leverage they can exert in the next year against Obama and Democrats.
Instead, they would like to pass a continuing resolution that funds the government only through the first few months of 2015, giving Republicans more leverage to defund any executive action President Obama takes on immigration as well as a number of other defunding priorities.
“The logical thing to do is to pass a continuing resolution instead of a massive omnibus” spending bill, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday. “People who have been voted out of office and no longer have the trust of their constituents shouldn’t be the ones deciding on a whole lot of Christmas trees and ornaments to be giving folks as they leave.”
It’s true, he said, that passing an omnibus spending bill would take all the tough issues off the table for early next year and avoid charges of partisan brinksmanship and gridlock.
Doing so, however, would send a message to Republican voters that “we just want to go along and get along and let the administration make all the decisions on who gets what goodies,” he said.
Especially on key Republican priorities such as defunding upcoming executive action on immigration and using the budget reconciliation process to repeal key aspects of Obamacare, conservatives argue that passing a massive spending bill in the lame duck session would undermine their power.
Before the election, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus promised that Republicans would do everything they could to stop Obama’s executive action on immigration, and some conservatives in Congress argue that moving forward with the omnibus bill would undermine that pledge.
Gohmert said some GOP lawmakers say there will be other bills the president wants passed to which they could attach a measure defunding so-called executive “amnesty.” But Gohmert says such an effort will be much more difficult than just sticking to their fiscal conservative guns and passing a stopgap measure now.
Outside groups, such as Americans for Limited Government and Numbers USA, a group aimed at reducing the number of immigrants coming to the United States, also are warning members not to go along with the omnibus spending bill strategy.
Richard Manning, vice president of Americans for Limited Government, said the GOP has a host of defund priorities — the president’s “amnesty,” rolling back the Environmental Protection Agency’s power-plant regulations, a law passed during the wake of the 2008 economic crisis that gives the International Monetary Fund the ability to cut billions of dollars worth of checks without congressional approval — to name just a few.
“This is really just low-hanging fruit,” he said. “The only thing that keeps Obama in check is the threat of cutting off funding.”
Pushing off budget negotiations until the new year also would deny Reid a place at the table.
“Who do I want negotiating with the president?” Manning asked. “Do I want Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell sitting down with Harry Reid to hash out a deal or standing toe-to-toe with Obama next year? I prefer the latter.”
Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for Numbers USA, agreed, although she said she doesn’t view it as a partisan issue because voter surveys show broad opposition to the president’s proposed executive action on immigration.
“If Congress were to pass an omnibus bill without defunding language in it, he would be handing over its only proactive constitutional tool to rein in the president,” she said. “The only option, as far as we see it, is to pass a short-term continuing resolution.”
Although the group would like to see some defunding language in a stopgap funding bill, Jenks said it’s a more “reasonable strategy” to pass a clean short-term funding bill for now.
Then in January, Congress can pass all the other appropriations bills except the one funding the Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella organization of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The Customs and Border Protection agency, the U.S. Secret Service and the Coast Guard are all considered essential workers and would remain on the job, even if Obama vetoed a bill that included a defunding provision. The only affected employees would be the non-essential workers in the USCIS division, she said.
“It would be Obama’s choice – he would have to choose whether his illegal amnesty for illegal immigrants is important enough to veto the bill,” Jenks said.
